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hot house photography

You’ve got to love the i. In Iceland it can mean an information office or a pullover on the side of the road with a map and information. The i in Iceland is often a small shopping center with a supermarket, post office and gas station. In Hveragerdi we stopped at the i and picked up a brochure about a photography show in a greenhouse at the Agricultural University up the hill. The idea of a photography exhibition in a greenhouse is totally irresistible.

This is a greenhouse, maybe not a working greenhouse, but still a greenhouse. And even in Iceland, inside the greenhouse was hot and humid; not a great place for photographs. Most were hung with clips from existing pipes, a few were framed.

Where plants still existed in this space, even though they were not well looked after; the combination of notes about the photographs and plant labels was definitely created by someone with a great sense of humor.

This photography show is part of STEYPA, which I had to google. I thought it was an a acronym for something. It turns out steypa is an old norse word meaning to cast. to mould, to found, to make. http://www.steypaphoto.com

There are 10 photographers in the show. Some have left Iceland and others like Anna Grevenitis is working on a series called “Crane photobomb” which is about the implications of the booming tourist business in Iceland.

Claudia Kerns has tackled the topic, “Icelanders in Berlin” taking aim at Icelanders living abroad.

Nanne Springer, Moved from Germany to Canada in 2010. First visit to Iceland 2016 to explore Icelandic architecture.

Julia Kozakiewicz. PL. She has been in Iceland since last summer and lives in Reykjavik.

Thoms Verfaille, Belgium, First visit to Iceland 2013.

So you are at this really strange place. Huge dysfunctional greenhouses and no one around. I open the door to one of the large greenhouses… the banana house.

What’s a greenhouse without an Oleander plant to greet you.

And just when you think things really can’t get any weirder… you see a bunch of young people in an enclosed area creating some kind of raised beds. It turns out they are a group of engineering students from Cooper Union, who are working on a project to use the geothermal energy in this area to create a series of raised beds to grow food.